Patterns
Ask users for…
Email address
Use: Deployed
Follow this pattern to ask a user for an email address.
Usage
When to use this pattern
- When you need to collect an email address. For example, for contact information.
Examples
Default
Prefill information
How to design and build
How this pattern works
- Prepopulate email address from profile whenever possible. This makes it easier for users as they have one less field to complete.
- Adding an email confirmation field. The email confirmation field is unnecessary if we’re using the email from a profile. Also, it’s not useful for catching errors as most users copy and paste and don’t review their initial entry.
- If possible, tell users why you want their email address. Users need to know that the VA won’t abuse their email and which email they’d like to provide. An example message is: We may use your contact information so we can get in touch with you if we have questions about your application.
- Validate email addresses. You should validate email addresses so you can let users know if they have entered one incorrectly.
- Inform users when prefilling information from VA.gov profile. Notify users that information from their profile has been prefilled into the form. An example message is: We’ve prefilled some of your information from your account.
- Indicate to users whether an update in this form will update their VA.gov profile. Notify users that a change will not update their VA.gov profile. An example message is: Any updates you make here will only apply to this application.
Content considerations
Error message templates for email addresses
When a user doesn’t enter an email address:
Say ‘Please enter an email address’
When a user enters an invalid email address:
Say ‘Please enter a valid email address’
When an email address is above the 50-character limit:
Say ‘We don’t support email addresses that exceed 50 characters’